"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone"

Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday in the United States

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had a great quality time with your loved ones. Today, I want to share my Thanksgiving and Black Friday experience. As you may or may not know, Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in the United States, Canada, and some of the Caribbean Islands. It is the day when family gather and give thanks for what they have. Overall, it is a beautiful day to have quality time with people that we love. But my heart goes to the turkeys that lost their family during Thanksgiving; it must be a hard time for them. Nah, jk, I ate turkey too.

I had my first Thanksgiving back in 2015; I was invited by my friend Priscilla to join her and her host family for lunch. We prayed together before we ate and then we enjoyed the food that Priscilla’s host mom made. I really enjoyed the time I spent in their house, experiencing American culture with local people, and tried turkey for the first time. After we had finished eating, we did karaoke in the living room. I was glad that they didn’t kick me out for singing horribly.

This year, I spent my Thanksgiving day waiting in front of Best Buy for an early Black Fridayshopping. People who never lived in America might not be familiar with this event. Black Fridayis the day following the Thanksgiving day when major retailers open early and offer promotional sales. In a big retailer such as Walmart and Target, Black Friday looks a bit like a zombie apocalypse. A bunch of people will line up hours before the door even opened, and run everywhere to get the products they wanted. I dared myself to go for a Black Friday shopping at Best Buy with Yahya and Souhaiel, my Tunisian friends. They opened at 5 pm on Thursday to avoid an uncontrollable crowd. I lined up at 12.30 pm, and there were about ten people in front of me. Ten determined people. It was freezing cold, and I managed to survive with only one burger, one large portion of fries, and a bottle of coca cola. I was aiming for a new laptop because the one that I have works really slow. The new laptop’s price used to be $1200, but it drops to $700. See the miracle of Black Friday? I could save $500 (which costs me 50 hours-ish of work) only by waiting for 4.5 hours. Worth it!

After I got the laptop that I wanted, I ended my day with a Thanksgiving dinner with my lovely friends, Dinda, Dea, Min and Aji in a restaurant nearby. We had a great time together and I’m thankful that I spent my Thanksgiving day with them. This long day has become one of the unforgettable days of my study abroad experience.

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In the end, here is a great quote I found on Google. And once again, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!